breath of life
by Lady StarFlower
Summary: "You made flowers grow in my lungs and, although they are beautiful, I cannot breathe." Hanahaki Disease AU, where flowers grow in your lungs and on your object of affection if you are afflicted with unrequited love. Izuku/Todoroki, Izuku/Iida, Izuku Bakugou, Izuku/Uraraka. Angst. Inspired by masterdipster' lovely artwork you see as the cover! I take no credit for their creation.
1. Wish l Could Be with You

_uraraka_

She coughs carnations.

She hides it behind a blinding smile and beaming eyes. Quickly sweeps the damp blooms into her bag, hides them under her uniform, touches them so they float into the stratosphere, anything to make them disappear. She refuses to believe that these beautiful, lovely halves of a blossom mean anything more than a silly crush.

Why do they _hurt_?

She doubles over during practice whenever she floats for too long, spitting them out onto the floor of the training grounds. When her friends rush over to her with concern, eyes widening when they see the damp carnations on the ground, she cries aloud with anger and tells them to leave her alone.

 _Are you sure you're alright, Uraraka-san_? It's Momo, holding her upright as she continues to spew petals on the ground, red and white and some that in between. _You should go see Recovery Girl! You look very sick!_

 _I don't want to see her._ Her voice is hoarse and pained, it hurts to even talk. Her lungs are burning, and her ribs feel constricted. _I don't need to see her!_

She can see Deku training from here on the elevated training tower. He's spinning in a roundhouse kick aimed at a hardened Kirishima, that signature green arch of greased lightning accelerating at a speed too fast to catch.

It's been only a year. Why was she so infatuated with him that this…these damp carnation flowers, was happening to her?

She hears him scream in determination. Kirishima's alarmed yelp is caught in the undertow of that heroic cry. _SMASH!_

Uraraka coughs weakly, smiling at the sky as Momo begins to worriedly carry her out of the gym. It's because of that single-minded determination, that drive to push himself to his limit… It's incredibly exhilarating to watch.

She remembers how he used to be a nervous, trembling mess of a boy who always crumbled under the force under his strange, unexplainable Quirk, never looking her quite in the eye as his feet fidgeted and his fingers twiddled.

But…now look at him. He's carrying a weight she can't explain, and he's shouldering it with the straightforward and desperate determination she can never hope to imitate.

Deku could never be weighed down with something like a girlfriend. He would never think of her as more than a friend, an ally to help him in his journey to be a worthy hero. Look, even now as her classmates crowd around her in worry, Deku is still staring straight ahead, battling to the best of his abilities with Kirishima, green electricity dancing around him like magic.

He will never look anywhere else but ahead.

And so she would forever be behind him, coughing striped carnations, watching them redden more and more until they were drenched in her blood, until her lungs were nothing but roots seeking something that would never exist.

Because a girl who could make things float could never fit with a boy grounded on an indestructible determination.


	2. Resignation and Good-bye

_ii. iida_

He coughs cyclamens.

He's never the kind to be clouded in such a way. He has a family name and reputation to uphold. He is a shame, an utter disgrace for letting such personal feelings inhibit his training to become a worthy hero of carrying on his family's legacy.

How could such a thing happen to him?

It's almost ironic, the night hanahaki grasped his lungs. He had plunged wildly and recklessly into supposedly catching his brother's fallen torch, only to drop it that same night.

The night when Midoriya Izuka saved his life from the Hero Killer Stain.

Memories of that night would always be accompanied by emerald-laced punches, of white teeth gritted in a tight wince of pain, of repeated and desperate shouts for him to _get up and fight!_

This is something undefeatable.

Iida stares at the white, blank tiles of the hospital room's ceiling. The surgeons will be coming in soon, to operate on the cyclamen roots wrapped around his lungs. It'll all be over in a matter of hours. He'll hold no more affection for Midoriya, and he will be spared an excruciating death like what Uraraka had succumbed to.

Somehow the thought makes him cough again, dropping red cyclamens over his hospital threads.

 _You'll be cured completely, Tenya._ His mother had told him, clutching the bed rails with whitened knuckles. _You won't die a premature death! You'll live to be a healthy, honorable hero!_

His mother has almost lost one son to an early death. He cannot burden her with that pain that they were almost forced to bear because of that despicable Hero Killer. 

_I'm sorry for disgracing you in this way._

His phone buzzes. He reaches wearily for it, his heart clenching as he sees the cheery text message lighting his screen.

 **Allmight#1Fan: I hope your operation goes okay!** **Class 1-A is praying for the safe return of our class prez!**

He clutches the phone to his chest, the sudden violent clenching of his chest forcing him to cough again, his pained sobs eclipsed by the fit of coughing that brings up more and more cyclamens, whole stems of the cursed plant instead of the small petals months ago…

The nurses burst in, a flock of worried white birds that swarm around his bed clucking in dismay. The tallest of them briskly sticks a needle of some kind into his arm, and his world goes hazy.

 _Hey, Iida-kun, you did really well in practice today!_

 _I'm honored you think so, Midoriya! It was quite taxing to run for so long, but my calves have become more resilient to wear because of your advice! Thank you again for your discerning guidance!_

 _A-ah…it wasn't much…_

… _Er, Midoriya, would it be too much to ask if I were to seek your advice again in the future? I could really use the help!_

 _Oh…I don't think I should do that so often._

 _Nonsense! A true hero relies on others to become strong! You have taught me so, during the fight that night…_

 _But, Iida-kun-_ Green eyes lock onto his, rigidly bright with something Iida could not name, _I can't provide the "guidance" you seek._

It was Iida Tenya who was drugged, but it's Ingenium who awakes.

Because Midoriya would always be moving at a speed of heroic growth too fast for even a boy with engines in his calves to catch up to.


	3. Please Forgive Me

_iii. bakugou_

He coughs hyacinths.

He refuses to believe he is sick. He wears a face mask, burns the purple and yellow flowers until they are nothing but smoking crisps of dead foliage, crushing them underneath his boots and then blasting the remains for good measure.

How can he be sick for that damned nerd, that coward, that stupid darling of the Hero Academy?!

They've known each since they were little brats. His earliest memories had nothing but stupid green in it; the green of that fucker's overly large eyes, that scruffy green mop of hair, ever accentuated by All Might t-shirts and merchandise…trailing behind him like a lost sheep ready for the slaughter…

How could he love that damn nerd when fucking ALL MIGHT chose that idiot to inherit that shitty Quirk?! To be the heir in a line far too grand and crazy powerful up for a fragile wimp like Deku to even handle?! It's all wrong!

This whole thing is stupid. Deku even had the nerve to go up to him, to try to be fucking _friends_ …even saved his ass in that last horrible fight with All Might. It's all his fault, all his fault…

They say that the reason Round Face died and Four Eyes became so off was because of hanahaki. They say, just in whispers, that it is caused by unrequited love.

What a load of bullshit.

The burning in his lungs has nothing to do with love. That heat and rush of warmth in his face whenever he sees Deku beating the crap out of his opponents is caused by nothing but rage. The stupid flowers that swarm from his heaving throat is because of a viral infection, and nothing to do with the fact that Deku never trembles before him anymore…

He screams, and punches the wall with a violent, catastrophic explosion that causes the empty grounds to shake like a middle-school student before a mass of laughing bullies.

 _Kacchan…?_

 _You and me both…we always looked up to the same person, ain't that right? The guy who I always thought was a damn pebble on the side of the road was being acknowledged by the person I looked up to the most._

 _I want to confirm exactly what's so great about you…that All Might himself would go so far for you._

And he knew, the moment the stupid nerd had fought back, yelling at him to _stop this, Kacchan!_ that All Might saw something that impressed and overwhelmed Bakugou the same way the damned roots of the hyacinths had overtaken his weak-ass lungs.

The fact that Midoriya is going to be a better hero than anyone else, than Bakugou or even All Might. The picture-book definition of hero, a figure of peace who the people will learn to place their trust in to protect them from the villains.

And he, despite his fierce and violent protestations, _admired_ him.

He simply can't accept that.

Bakugou growls as he clenches the crumpling hyacinths in his clenched fists, blasting them to bits with a single spark. If destroying the flowers won't go away, then he will kill them at the source.

He picks up the bottle of white distilled vinegar and uncaps it.

"Die."

Because the hero who would be a paragon of peace and protecting the populace would never look twice at a boy who explodes everything he comes in contact with.


	4. Admiration and Solitude

_iv. todoroki_

He coughs heathers.

He studies them, with mingled surprise and trepidation. He has heard of this hanahaki, the disease that is a manifestation of unrequited love that would overtake a person to the point of death.

He knows about this. He has heard of what happened to Uraraka and Bakugou, even Iida. And he can attempt a guess at why.

The green-haired boy sitting in front of him, listening to All Might lecture about hero etiquette and public behavior with an attentive look on his freckled face.

He clenches his fist. This is something unavoidable. It's like the left side of him, burning into him like the scar his mother had poured onto him. It's like the invisible bruises on his body left by his father when he was but a child, cringing before the sudden weight of his amalgamated Quirk and the rift it was already tearing into his family.

He had hated this left side of him.

Until Midoriya had screamed at him, across a stadium of thousands, his blackened fingers trembling with pain, _IT'S YOUR POWER, ISN'T IT?!_

That day, more than fire was burning in him as he raised his arm to meet Midoriya's frantic build-up of power. It was an unutterable thanksgiving, a sudden admiration for this boy who could see past the animosity in his ice and the scar on his face, and a secret budding pining for more of what this intuitive and shy individual could offer him.

He wants more.

He remembers vividly how when he was fighting Bakugou, that enraged opponent who demanded to fight nothing but the best of what Todoroki could offer, Midoriya had shouted at him to _fight_. To not hold back, for what hero ever held back in the eternal fight against evil?

He had tried. He really did. But fighting Bakugou…wasn't the same as fighting Midoriya. If the fight between him and Bakugou was a lively waltz, then the one with Midoriya was like a frenzied tango.

And in the end, Todoroki wore a medal of silver instead of one of gold because of that.

Because Midoriya had lit the dormant volcano inside him, that rush of adrenaline he had been searching for. For so long, he had tried to ignore the double stranded helixes his father has passed to him, tried to avoid the fact that he could light up the world and warm the cold with his power simply because that he associated "fire" with "disgusting egotism and destruction".

But fire could be warmth, it could be salvation. It could be the light in the darkness by which lost individuals like the rebellious children could find their way. It was so much than the looming shadow of his father.

And Midoriya helped him realize that, and now Todoroki is suffering from yet another assumed hope of falsehood: that Midoriya could care about him the same way he does for him.

But, even as he coughs purple flowers into his hand, quietly so as not to disturb All Might's lecture, he silently despairs, because he knows that some things in life could not be resolved as simply as lighting a flame.

So he sits silently, watching Midoriya the same way the green-haired boy watches All Might; with near adoration, and a strong internal desire for closeness.

Because a hero who shines as bright as Midoriya does would always outshine the glow of a boy of roaring fire and gleaming ice.


	5. Wishes will Come True

_v. midoriya_

They've started growing several months ago.

Striped carnations, cyclamens, purple and yellow hyacinths, and violet colored heathers. They've flourished like ink under the hand of some twisted tattoo artist, all over his back and around his shoulders like a victor's wreath.

They're not huge blooms, but they're so overwhelmingly numerous that he's intimidated by them. He feels the gaze of the others on him, with shock and concealed resentment, and he feels thirteen all over again.

All Might doesn't say anything, but Midoriya sees him looking down at his charge with a look of grave sadness, something so weighty and painful that the boy wishes he could sink into the ground.

 _It's not your fault._

But it is.

Uraraka was so sweet, always bouncing from mission from mission with her trademark smile and those huge brown eyes wide with life and anticipation, encouraging her friends and companions to smile and be Plus Ultra. Iida saw almost everything in black and white, and so his rigid focus and empathetic heart was able to bring order to the chaotic motivations of Class 1-A.

Bakugou was the wild card, the scowling student who excelled at combat and studies with little effort, confronting anything in his wake with a battle cry and a spark from his hands. Todoroki entered U.A. with a heavy name and an even heavier Quirk, but his quiet strength led to a sort of steady solidarity with his peers.

And somehow, they all loved him to the point of destruction.

One night, Midoriya wakes up with a gasp, rolling over in bed to see scattered carnations all over his mattress, crushed by the weight of his body. They had fallen off of his back sometime when he was asleep, like hands letting go with a resigned sigh.

The next morning, Uraraka Ochako was no longer attending U. A.

He cries into his sleeve, and he cries alone. The other bewildered and grief stricken students had all seen them; the blood-red carnations that had fallen from Uraraka's mouth during training as she desperately tried to hide them from sight, coughing. They had also seen the very same red flowers growing from Midoriya's neck.

They don't hate him for it, but resentment bubbles very close to hatred anyway.

It's the dark blue cyclamens that leave his back next. With a sharp stinging sensation; invisible knives tear through his skin with frigid precision and unerring fatality. He sits unmoving in class as it happens, and the dark blooms fall silently to the ground before the wide eyes of a stock-still Mineta.

Iida returns to class the next day, as if nothing has happened, but there is no more life in his eyes when he looks at Midoriya. He seems the very image of a villain-killer; cold, unfaltering, and unerringly exact.

The former easy-going Class 1-A seemed to undergo a change to the eyes of the other students of U.A. Suddenly, those who saw a 1-A student walking down the hall, head ducked, would nervously traipse to the other side of their path.

Pro heroes frowned as they watched the next sports festival, watching these students take down their opponents with unforgiving power. Even villains have begun to shudder at the coldness in those students' eyes, because that steely determination seemed to say,

 _We will destroy all who oppose us._

Bakugou was found convulsing next to the empty training towers of Ground Gamma by an empty bottle of something that smelled of white vinegar. Yellow hyacinths lay next to him, and the boy coughed purple petals as he shuddered and then fell still.

Midoriya feels the flowers fall off him as if they've been burned off, and spends the next week taking cold showers to rid himself of that last burning sensation, like someone had been screaming their throat raw, calling out the name of someone who would never be able to hear them.

They all fall off, until nothing but the violet colored heathers are left. Those soft, puckered flowers terrify Midoriya, because he has no idea who could be suffering from hanahaki this late and still be alive.

The teachers have even confronted him on this, and though Midoriya knows that they mean well, the added darkness under Aizawa-sensei's weary eyes wouldn't even be there if it weren't for this stupid, cursed sickness.

 _It's a curse, through and through._ He laments as he and Todoroki walk home after class one evening. _I've caused the deaths of people close to me, and it's something that I could never try to solve. How can I look at someone and try to truly love them when I don't?_

Todoroki looks at him, something unreadable in that heterochromatic gaze. _Maybe they didn't want to be rid of it._

 _I know Iida didn't want it._ Midoriya kicks the ground bitterly, watching the pebbles roll down the hill and disappear from view. _Now he's not himself anymore. I've acted ignorant and innocent to what he could be feeling, even sending him that text message when I knew he could be in pain…I'm so stupid to think that I could change anything else for good anymore._

 _And who knows?_ He laughs, grating and shrill. _This next person could be head over heels with me and I will unknowingly cause another reckless death…just like Kacchan's. I'm no hero…I'm a short-sighted, selfish idiot!_

 _Midoriya!_ Todoroki's voice is harsh, and he coughs briefly before clutching at Midoriya's trembling shoulders. _You are not a selfish person. This disease kills those who love you, and not you, because they are the ones to choose to feel that way. It's okay for you not to love them back, because you are you. To act against your own wishes is to not be yourself, and they would not love that._

 _It's their own fault for loving you. Not yours._ His voice drops suddenly, full of sudden, unexplainable pain. _Not yours at all._

Midoriya stares at him, his eyes wide. _What are you saying?_

 _Just…live for yourself. It does sound selfish…_ Todoroki lets go, wiping at his mouth quickly. He stares at something white in his hands. _But the person who loves you will at least be at peace knowing that you do care about those you affected._

 _Todoroki…_ Midoriya breathes in a shuddering breath, and then offers a wan smile. _Thank you. That's…comforting to hear._

Todoroki nods briskly, his sudden effusiveness dissipating slowly. He walks slowly away from Midoriya, his gait slow and labored, and Midoriya hurries to catch up with him. They walk home, in silent companionship.

In the heat of the moment, neither of them have noticed that the violet heathers, in the mouth and around the neck, have disappeared.

 **A/N: Meanings of the flowers:**

 **Uraraka: Red carnations symbolize heartache and admiration, white ones symbolize purity of love, and striped ones literally mean I'm sorry, I can't be with you.**

 **Iida: Cyclamens are commonly used as funeral flowers because they are associated with resignation and goodbyes.**

 **Bakugou: Hyacinths generally mean rashness, but yellow ones symbolize jealousy while purple ones are equivalent to saying, Please forgive me or I'm sorry. :(**

 **Todoroki: Purple heathers mean solitude or loneliness, but white ones mean, Wishes do come true. :D**

 **Thank you for reading!**


End file.
